Chickenfat: William A. Trammell/Hunter and Emelilne Ray

William A. Trammell/Hunter was born in Macon County, North Carolina. I made a split between his surname Trammell and Hunter. That is because when he was born his mother Rebecca Trammell and her parents raised him. Then, his last name was Trammell. Almost three decades later he changed his surname to his paternal name: Hunter.

William was born November 9. 1842. After the birth, his mother Rebecca sued the local constable Jason Henderson Hunter in Franklin, Macon County, North Carolina, of bastardy. The court ruled in her favor, charging Franklin $100 a year for child support for, I suppose sixteen or eighteen years.

Years later, after the Civil War, Jason and William swapped letters recognizing each as father and son.

Rebecca died early in William's life, before 1850. He was raised by his grandparents Jacob B. and Polly Hogshead Trammell*. The Jacob Trammell house hold was full of children and children's children. William lived with his uncles, aunts, and some of the aunts had children.

The youngest uncle Jacob VanBuren "Van" Trammell was about the same age as William. The neighbors thought they were brothers. I mentioned this because later Van was an important player in William's life which caused him to change direction.

As a teenager he secretly courted Emaline Ray, the daughter of John and Nancy Sumner Ray. They disapproved of William, she had to slip out the window to meet him.

Polly drowned in the Little Tennessee River between 1850 and 1860. Jacob, the head of the household, died in September 1860. Jacob was a wheeler-dealer. According to the deeds he bought and sold land for years and years. At his death, he owed more than he owned, so his properties and to be liquidated to pay his depts. The children and grandchildren had lost their home and had to go their separete ways. Most of them went Arkansas.

On, 1 May 1862, he enlisted in Macon County, North Carolina, into the 39th North Carolina Infantry, Company I. He was nineteen years old. He enlisted with the name he had used since birth - William A. TRAMMELL.

The first year of his war efforts has yet been uncovered. On 19 May 1863, he was admitted to the First Mississippi C. S. A. Hospital in Jackson, Mississippi, for Febris Intermiten Quotidian. In layman terms he was having a reoccurring fever daily. He returned to duty 25 June 1863 after spending a month and six days in the hospital.

While on furlough, 19 April 1864, William A. TRAMMELL and Emaline RAY married. William was twenty-one and Emaline was eighteen just one week.

Shortly after they were married William returned to his Unit. The Unit went to be part of the "Battle of Kennesaw Mountain", near Marietta, Georgia.

Note- About one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five years later over a hundred of William and Emaline's descendants would be living within a few miles of Kennesaw Mountain.

William's unit, the 39th Regiment, Company I, was fixed on the crest between Big Kennesaw Mountain and Little Kennesaw Mountain.

William and two of his friends were at a spring kneeling down drinking water. Shots. One of his friends dropped with a bullet hole in his head. He and his remaining living friend got up to run. More shots. William was shot in the leg. He fell while his friend fled. The boys in blue ran by him in pursuit of his friend, evidently assuming he was dead.

Once, in the early 1920s William's grandson (my uncle) drove William to Kennesaw Mountain and they walked over the mountain with William pointing out different incidents. My father, Ed Hunter, was with them. Daddy said William walked bent over and talked in a whispery voice. He said he cried some that day.

According to the records William was shot in the knee July 18, 1864. That, incidentally, was the same day that the President of the Confederacy fired General Joseph E. Johnston of that campaign and replaced him with General Hood.

On his questionnaire for a pension a question was what date he was wounded and William replied "July 18, 1864". Another question asked where was his unit at the time he was shot and he replied "Peachtree Creek" (Atlanta) which is historically accurate. Unfortunately, the questionnaire did not ask the applicant where he was when he shot, only where his unit was, which could be two different places.

A note: There are eight active springs on Kennesaw Mountain and several dried up ones.

Personally, I think he got the months June and July confused and in time of war, one month makes a big difference.

During the Civil War times there was a Andersonville Community just a couple miles north of Woodstock, in Cherokee County.

He said that in that private home where he recuperated the lady that nursed him was named Amanda Jane. A few years later he would honor that lady by naming his only daughter after her.

After he got well enough he somehow gained possession of a mule and walked (or limped) back home to Macon County, North Carolina, which would be slightly over a hundred miles away.

Apparently, he arrived home before November 1864 (based on the incubation period and birth date of their first born Charles). He was about twenty-two when he returned from the War.

For the next couple of years William and Emaline lived just south of Franklin, North Carolina and had two children.

Posey C. Wild was a close friend. He was the close friend who was with William at the time he was shot by Union Soldiers by the spring, and was lucky to flee with his life. After that event,

10 August 1864, Posey was promoted to Second Lieutenant.

"Van TRAMMELL and his brother William were trying to collect pay for a horse that had been stolen from William. The man refused to pay. William hit the man with a gun and killed him. Van left for Arkansas and William for Georgia."

The man who William and his uncle Van Trammell killed was named Lambert. - Surname TRAMMELL from nformation submitted by Darlene Lackey. June 18, 2004, posting no. 1405.

Actually, Van went to Round Prairie Township, Benton County, Arkansas.

The William A. HUNTER family went to Texas. In Texas, William acquired "twelve or fifteen" tracts of land and tried being a cattle rancher. He had problems supplying water and had to give it up.

It is unknown where or when they ranched in Texas. We do know that one of their children, Frank Paris Hunter (my grandfather), was born in Granbury, Hood County, Texas, in 1879.

A little puzzle: Based on a Family Bible Frank Paris Hunter was born in Granbury, Texas. It has been handed down orally that Frank Paris was named after Paris, Texas. Paris, Texas, is about one hundred and fifty miles east of Granbury. Not close enough for namesakes - but apparently so.

1879 was also the year William and his family came back east and settled in Cherokee County, Georgia, less than ten miles away from Kennesaw Mountain, where he fought in the Civil War fifteen years earlier.

They first settled in the Kelp Community, which was in the area of what is presently the vicinity of the intersection of State Highway 92 and Bells Ferry Road.

William joined the Masonic Lodge which was located just a few miles east of Woodstock, which was the community of Anderson- ville. This "Andersonville" was discussed earlier the possible "Andersonville" William recuperated from his Civil War wounds.

When their oldest son Charlie grew up he opened a store appropriately called "Hunter's Store". He was also the Postmaster of Kelp. The Kelp Post Office was in a section of Hunter's Store.

Charlie also wrote a newspaper column of local news. The name of the column was also "Hunter's Store".

William A. HUNTER's son William Jason HUNTER was killed in June of 1896, at the age of twenty-one, in a hunting accident. William Jason when killed, had a pregnant wife (Fannie) and a daughter. William A. and Emaline had their daughter-in-law and granddaughter move in with them. They took up their late son's responsibility of providing food and shelter. The child that Fanny was pregnant with was named Lois. They lived with them until their death.

William A. HUNTER was also raised by his grandparents because of a parent dying. Which may be why William did this deed, because he knew the feeling. Again, history repeats itself.

Although it appears that William fled Macon County, North Carolina, in the 1860s, around the turn of the century he would return each year during apple season to see old friends and relatives, and of course to get a load of apples.

About 1908, William and his oldest son Charlie bought land in Woodstock, on Main Street, just a couple of blocks south of the center of town. They both built houses on the property.

Now (1998), the house is a store for rental company.

An act of Congress was passed in 1910 authorizing a soldier's pension for men who fought in the Civil War, for the North as well as the South. That same year, going on sixty-eight, William applied for his pension. On his application he stated that he was in Company I of the 39th Regiment (Infantry) of North Carolina. The application was turned down because no one by the name of William A. HUNTER was on the roster.

The roster did show a William A. TRAMMELL who enlisted on 1 May 1862. He and Posey C. Wild enlisted the same day. And at the Kennesaw Mountain Park, on the list of all those who fought, his name as TRAMMELL is listed.

He had a slight dilemma. He could admit he changed his name after the war. But what would be the consequences?

His solution worked. He gathered up three witnesses to swear to a questionnaire affidavit that he had not only fought but also was wounded in the War.

The witnesses:

1. Posey C. WILD on the questionnaire said he had known William all his life "and have seen him occasionally since he left this county in 1867". Posey also wrote that William lived in Woodstock, Georgia, since 1879, and still occasionally saw him "through my relation living there".

2. Doctor T. W. MCCLOUD said he witnessed William wounded in the knee on or near Kennesaw Mountain during what is known as the

Georgia Campaign.

3. George A. CAMPBELL said he saw William wounded in the knee or near the knee, the bullet tearing away much of the muscle and going through the leaders of the upper part of the leg about the knee.

In his latter years his grandchildren remembered him walking stooped over, carrying a cane, and speaking in a deep whispery voice.

In the late 1960s when I took an interest in genealogy I visited William's House. Then, an elderly lady, Lois Hunter Carroway lived in the house alone. She showed me around the house. We had several nice talks. In the back was a barn that William fell out and broke his leg. By the barn were green grapes growing on a vine trained on a small wire fence. I tasted a few grapes and they were very tasty. I thought it was something, eating produce that my great grandfather planted the plant for. William and Emaline Hunter were Lois Hunter Carroway grandparents. Her father William Jason was died as a young man when she was a small girl. William and Emelline took her and her sister and mother in and gave them a home. William was the only father she knew.

When I printed out a printout of William being illegitimate and had a part in killing a man and handed it out I should not have been surprised when she called me up and let blasted me up and down. I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. I slandered the only father she knew.

she told me she know all about William being illegitimate and being wanted for murder and she planned on carrying that secret to her grave. Being a self-appointed family historian sometime is a thankless endeavor.

Lois lived 103 years.

My father said Emeline Ray Hunter had a German or Dutch accent. I think he misunderstood that for the thick Western North Carolina accent. Daddy said one time she told him not to eat his pie so quickly, it will last longer. That is good advice and I remember it and slow down eating for that every reason: It will last longer. She didn't know that bit of advice will live infinitely.

They had seven children, six boys and one girl.

William lived 85 years and Emaline lived 79 years.

They are buried at Carmel Baptist Church in Woodstock, Cherokee County, Georgia.